How we feel about how we look and what we’re wearing can shape our behavior in surprising ways. You will probably recognize yourself in the first two scenarios but be surprised by the third one.
Scenario #1. You wake up and look in the mirror. It’s not pretty. You not only have bed-head, you also have bed-face and bad breath. The day is not off to a good start. Even though you do your best to spruce up, the memory of what you saw at 7 a.m. still haunts you and you behave like that miserable puppy the rest of the day.
Scenario #2. You walk into your closet and there it is! Your new Chanel jacket. The real deal, not a cheap knockoff. You put it on and walk out the door at least six inches taller than you were the day before. Even though no one can see the label at the back of your neck, you know what you’re wearing. You feel like a million bucks because you know what it cost. You enter that business meeting like you own the place, and everyone seems to agree: you rock.
Scenario #3. You have been given the very same jacket as above (the real deal), but you were told it’s an inexpensive knockoff from China. You may feel smug that you’re getting away with wearing a fake, but inside you do not get the emotional lift of Scenario #2. If given the opportunity, you might even be inclined to cheat a bit on a test. Or be less trusting of someone else.
What the heck?? Let me explain. A behavioral economist named Dan Ariely has done some fascinating experiments to figure out in what circumstances people are inclined to cheat. In his book, The (Honest) Book about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone, Especially Ourselves, describes some of these experiments. Subjects are given a simple test on paper, then asked to report how many problems they completed. (The research team knows how many problems most can finish in the allotted time and do not care whether they’re done correctly because that’s not the point…) When time’s up subjects report to the monitor how many problems they finished–the more they complete the more they’re paid. Depending on other variables, a certain percent will claim to have finished more problems than they actually did. Says Ariely:
“I started wondering about the relationship between what we wear and how we behave, and it made me think about a concept that social scientists call self signaling. The basic idea behind self signaling is that despite what we tend to think about ourselves, we don’t have a very clear notion of who we are… Instead, we observe ourselves in the same way we observe and judge the actions of other people – inferring who we are and what we’re like from our actions. For example you give a beggar some money and then interpret your deed as evidence of your compassionate and charitable character. Armed with this “new” information, you start believing more intensely in your own benevolence. That is self signaling at work.
“Thinking about fashion accessories, could carrying a real Prada bag, even if no one else knows it’s real, make us think and act a little differently than if we were caring a fake one? Does wearing counterfeit products somehow make us feel less legitimate?”
Well, as it all turns out, yes it does. Ariely had a bunch of expensive designer sunglasses. Although all the sunglasses were genuine, he told half the group they were wearing the real deal and the other half they were wearing knockoffs. It turns out the folks wearing the real deal cheated a little less than average, and the ones wearing the knockoffs cheated a bit more. Not only that, in an additional experiment, he discovered that the “knockoff” people were more likely to rate other people as potentially dishonest.
In no way am I suggesting we all run out and spend the big bucks on designer outfits. However, doesn’t it make you wonder what messages you are signaling to yourself if you go around looking like a schlump?
Speaking of cheating, what about cheating on diets? As some of you know, I’m writing a book that includes a major section on ditching diets, and Ariely has some thoughts on when and why we cheat on them. He wonders how come no one ever talks about bingeing at breakfast (because it rarely happens). But by the end of a long day we run out of emotional steam. We’ve made so many choices all day long (diet-related or other) that we have no more willpower. (Ego depletion is what this is called.) And then if we cheat once, the “what-the-hell” factor kicks in, and as in many other cheating situations, after the first instance the second and third instances are that much easier.
Combining both of Ariely’s ideas made me wonder: does being dressed like a schlump also make you more likely to cheat on a diet? How about when you’re feeling pulled together? Let me know…